The market for Location-Based Services (LBS) is potentially tremendous. Location-Based Services may comprise services where information about the location of users or assets may be required. One state-of-the art technology driving the LBS market today is assisted global navigation satellite systems (AGNSS). This technology combines satellite positioning and communication networks such as mobile networks to reach performance levels allowing the wide deployment of Location-Based Services. AGNSS uses global navigation satellite system (GNSS) assistance data provided from an AGNSS server via, for example, a mobile telephony network, to speed up the process of acquiring a position fix of a GNSS enabled mobile device especially in a weak signal environment. The AGNSS server has access to a reference network of GNSS receivers that are placed in ideal locations (direct line-of-sight to satellites). The GNSS receivers comprise Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers, the Global Orbiting Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS) receivers, and/or the GALILEO system receivers. The reference network may be used as a source (feed) for providing the GNSS assistance data. Depending on the AGNSS server and GNSS receiver capabilities, the GNSS assistance data may comprise various elements such as ephemeris data and reference time. The GNSS assistance data may be delivered to the GNSS enabled mobile device via various standard-compliant mobile networks such as a 3GPP-compliant cellular network. The format of the GNSS assistance data may be defined by the relevant standards body. The specifics of the encoding and field ranges depend on the access technology. For example, protocols such as RRLP (Radio Resource LCS protocol) and Positioning Calculation Application Part (PCAP) are utilized for communicating the GNSS assistance data via GSM networks and UMTS networks, respectively. The GNSS assistance data speeds up acquisition of GNSS signals and increases GNSS sensitivity yield in weak signal environments such as an indoor environment. The GNSS assistance data helps to significantly reduce the search required by the GNSS enabled mobile device.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with some aspects of the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.